18 May 2015

The “Local State” is that
part of the state apparatus that is apparent in the localities where people
live and work, and with which they interact on a daily basis.

It is not a precise term, but
it is a useful one when considering the environment that a branch of the SACP
or of the ANC, or a COSATU Local, operates in.

In political terms, the local
state, taken as a municipality, is historically the first form of (limited)
state power that the bourgeois class (the ruling class of the towns) created
under feudalism.

Garden City: Ward and Centre

Still, today, the
municipality is for the bourgeoisie a natural habitat and a convenient and
comfortable home. The ordinary bourgeoisie of the country makes most of its
money at this level.

For our text we are going to
use the third part of the ANC Branch Manual. It ranges somewhat wider but it
contains many references to parts of the “Local State”; and it proposes a
correct attitude of study and research into the local state as it exists in
every locality, with a view to representing the interests of the people of the
area.

The ANC’s class position, as
always, is ambiguous. The ANC Branch Manual of 2010 does not mention the SACP,
or the Alliance, as a factor at local level. In the section that we are using
(Part 3, attached), it takes on a social-welfare guise, which does indeed reflect
the character of the ANC as it often appears in the localities. Of course, this
is not the totality of the ANC; the ANC, among other things, is a political
party of power; and it is a liberation movement. It is all of these things, at
once.

In the remainder of this Part
8, we will proceed to look at the electoral demarcations and then at local and
national elections, in a general way.

Here, in this item, we will
be content to take an overview of a typical local environment, as reflected in
the attached ANC document.

In the next part (Part 9) of
the Induction Course, we will be dealing with the building of the different
components of the Alliance as subjective, free-willing political agency, with
revolutionary potential, as well as with quasi-state institutions that exist at
local level that compete directly with the voluntary mass-democratic
organisations. These include the Ward Committees, Community-Police Forums and
School Governing Bodies.